The Toronto Blue Jays gather for a group photo on the field after beating the New York Yankees in Game 4 of baseball’s American League Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
For the Yankees, the first at-bat of the Division Series began with a strikeout on a splitter and less than a week later, the last at-bat of the four-game series to the Toronto Blue Jays ended the same way.
Aaron Judge was on first base at about 10:30 pm after his RBI single with two strikes against Jeff Hoffman gave the Yankees a small glimmer of hope in what otherwise seemed inevitable.
About a minute later, Judge watched Hoffman whiff Cody Bellinger on the same pitch the Yankees could not do anything against when facing Kevin Gausman and rookie Trey Yesavage.
Judge walked off the field as the Blue Jays secured a 5-2 win and just like October 30 he and the rest of the Yankees watched another team celebrate on the field before partying inside the visiting clubhouse at Yankee Stadium.
While the Yankees have been in the playoffs 13 times out of 16 seasons in the current Yankee Stadium, they are watching other teams celebrate on their home field.
Since winning the World Series in 2009 in a six-game series over the Phillies, the Yankees have only clinched a postseason series at home four times. They clinched the 2010 ALDS over Minnesota and the 2012 ALDS over Baltimore and then went a decade before clinching the 2022 ALDS over Cleveland.
The latest was last week’s wild celebration after beating the Red Sox in a best-of-three wild-card series, becoming the first team to lose Game 1 before winning the next two. It was the kind of celebration where the lights were dimmed, the music was blaring, liquids flowed and the kind of party where phones could be temporarily damaged if not careful.
Less than a week later, the celebration of Cam Schlittler’s dominance is a distant and faded memory as the Blue Jays became the fifth opponent to clinch a postseason series at Yankee Stadium.
It was a series where the Yankees led for three-plus innings when Jazz Chisholm’s homer snapped a tie created by Judge’s electrifying tying blast off the foul pole following a consultation during a pitching change with fellow slugger Giancarlo Stanton.
Except it delayed what seemed inevitable the instant the Blue Jays took a two-run lead in Game 1 or a 12-run lead through the five innings in Game 2.
Judge and the rest of the Yankees watched the Blue Jays join the 2011 Tigers, 2015 Astros, 2018 Red Sox, 2022 Astros and the 2024 Dodgers as opponents to clinch a wild-card game, a playoff series of a World Series title in the Bronx.
Each celebration is similar, a dogpile at the mound, a brief speech by the manager, spraying of champagne, loud music and a celebration on the field of varying lengths.
Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. celebrates with teammates after beating the New York Yankees in Game 4 of baseball’s American League Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Last year when the Dodgers secured the World Series title by overcoming a five-run deficit and capitalizing on mental and physical errors, their celebration lasted at least two hours on the field if not closer to three.
The Blue Jays’ celebration lasted about an hour but it was an hour well spent, starting with personable manager John Schneider giving a speech by saying “Start Spreading the News” before “New York New York” blared.
At some point in the fray, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. joined the fun with David Ortiz on FOX by saying “The Yankees Lose”.
And Guerrero had a lot to do with the Yankees losing in the Division Series. His .529 average was the second-highest against the Yankees in the Division Series, only eclipsed by Edgar Martinez hitting .571 in 1995 for Seattle and Carlos Guillen doing the same for Detroit in 2006.
Guerrero’s monster series contributed to the Yankees producing an 8.47 ERA, just inching out the unsightly 8.21 ERA in their four-game loss to the Angels in the 2022 ALCS.
“The ending’s the worst, right,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Especially when you know you have a really good group and a group of guys that really came together so well at the right time, the final couple months. This was a team. It’s a team that played for one another, did a lot of really good things, and we got beat here.”
New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge reacts after striking out against the Toronto Blue Jays during the eighth inning of Game 4 of baseball’s American League Division Series, Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
The Yankees did a lot of good things, especially in the final weeks by ending with an eight-game winning streak and 25 wins in their final 33 games. The reality is they were never as good as the Blue Jays, especially after ceding the division lead during their horrific four-game sweep in Toronto June 30-July 3.
And it showed throughout the past few days with nearly every decision by Toronto working out. One of them was a bullpen game because Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt were left off the roster, which meant a cavalcade of arms would be asked to close out the Yankees.
The first was Louis Varland, the same pitcher who allowed Judge’s majestic homer. He handed it off to Mason Fluharty, who ceded to Seranthony Dominguez. Then came Eric Lauer, Yariel Rodriguez, Brendon Little and Braydon Fisher ahead of Hoffman, whose splitter also ended the eighth when Austin Wells swung at the first pitch for a harmless fly ball to protect to a 5-1 lead that easily could have been wider.
The ending often is cruel and abrupt and it can lead to lamentations of not doing enough inside a quiet clubhouse where the Yankees hoped to play their array of victory songs 10 more times.
“It’s tough to describe,” Judge said after hitting .500 in the series. “We didn’t do our jobs and finish our goal. We’ve got a special group in here, a lot of special players but we didn’t get the ultimate prize…that’s what you play for, you play to win. When you don’t win, it’s not a good year.”
The last part is the standard the Yankees hold themselves to and at various points since Nov. 4, 2009, someone has stated similar words while an opponent celebrates raucously on the other side of a ballpark.
This time it was a team playing for an entire country who often gets overlooked as evidenced by not being on FOX since 2017 until this series.
“We’ve been together on this,” Guerrero Jr. said. “And maybe some people don’t believe in the team through the year, but I always remind everyone that we have an entire country behind us that believe in us, and hopefully we can get the World Series back to Canada.”
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